numbat - "Having said that I will counter lies, distortions and falsehoods from Christian, pagan and unbelievers." I'd be interested to see some links to posts where you have directly challenged lies, distortions or falsehoods from christains who are on the same side of an argument as your self. You might consider your less than overwhelming response to coaches claims about fasting marking Islam as a false religion or hotted up cars, people movers and family picnics being a sure fire way to identify mossies.

I note in another recent post that you claim not to believe in an eternity of hell fire but I have not spotted any posts directly challenging those who propose eternal damnation for those of us who don't hold to your faith. Where is the evidence for your claim?

Regarding Islamic contribution to inventions it is my impression that the most significant advances go back to the time when the western world was tied down by the excesses of the christain church and the muslim world was relatively free of the excesses of the overly religious. At that stage they laid the foundations for a lot of maths, did a lot of core research into how things work as well as inventing quite a lot of stuff that is still in use. There is a lot of material available on the web if you care to do a search.

Neither the Islamic world nor the Western world have prospered when the religious have held excessive power (learning can get mighty uncomfortable for simplistic world views) but both have contributed to the advances which have lifted us out of the dark ages when the religious have held only limited secular power. Something to consider as the christain church continues to seek to regain power over how science is taught in schools and organised christain political parties seek to gain secular power.

R0bert

RObert: Shamefully much of your observations are true regarding other views of Christianity - but not all.
Your list of moslem inventions is where? Re mathematics - not poached from the captive jews and Christians?
Strange that after leaving Spain islam just disappeared as regards to any new thought or invention - strange that no more captive clever peoples and no more innovations.
I have read that if it is not in the pagan koran then it is not important. If there is a mention in the pagan koran then there's no more to say on the matter as the koran is the word of utter truth. To question the pagan koran with new understanding would be seen as blasphemy.
Have you read on what your koran does say about the human body - what a hoot! numbat

Look, what are we still talking about? In the end, "sharia law" is not law but custom. Here.

So go ahead, name whatever it is you like to do whatever you want to call it, including using the word "law" if it makes you feel happy or more important.

If you wish to practise legal foreign customs, go ahead, knock yourselves out - its australia, you're allowed to do it ... under the law.

numbat, first up it is not my koran. I'm clearly agnostic. My interest in this topic is a strong preference for fair play in debate and life and a view that unfair villification of a section of the community harms us all. Much of what is being written about muslims is grossly unfair and misleading. If you have a browse through my posts you won't find any defences of the quran or Mohammed. You will find objections to double standards where the muslims are judged according to what is in the quran but christains insist that they not be judged by any part of the bible that is awkward. You will find objections to claims that all muslims live acording to the most unpleasant portions of their scriptures when history shows that generally they do not (and christains dodge the awkward bits of their own scriptures).

In regard to muslim inventions I made some comments on the topic at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=3947#23339 which includes a couple of links to lists and discussion of muslim inventions.

I've known christains who believe it is wrong to pay any attention to the environment because God is going to destry the earth anyway (and can justify it by selected use of scripture).

Others who are able to justify all sorts of things by taking parts of the bible as they want to. Some who boast of reading nothing except the bible (and can justify that from scripture as well) - kind of similar thinking to what you refer to from the quran but clearly not the way all christains treat learning or our responsibilities to this world.

When you are at least as vigerous in your attacks on christians who misrepresent the christain faith as you are on those who hold to different faiths (or lack thereof) I will take your claims of impartiality more seriously.

R0bert

Froggie,
You first denounce that law is not only derived from religion [a values system]: then continue to prove that it does.

Quote, "The idea that law can only derive from religion is false. There is a long tradition of Western Philosophy, starting with the Ancient Greeks (but also probably before that), which underpins our legal system. The word "ideology" also encompasses such things as "Nazism", and "Communism". Religion incorporates many of the philosophical ideas, but adds to it a mystical, irrational layer."

Please identify the mystical and irrational layer of a Christian view of our laws!

More and more of our laws are formulated from a value system that is deliberately antagonistic toward Christian values. A set of value even if atheistic stands on the same basis as any other set of values. Values are a set of standards behaviours felt or believed by a group to be important for human behaviour. like, "Thou shalt not kill" which Jesus said also means hate or wish ill will upon another person.

The oldest written codified laws were inscribed in stone monuments some 1,800 years before Christ and were clearly religious. Just read the prologue and epilogue to these laws to recognise they announce the empowerments and cursings of every known god in the land. So law had its beginnings in religion.

Even the Greeks had their supernatural superstitions, they were not free from religious superstitions as some seem to imply. We have retained the Greecian idea that alcohol cause evil spirits to enter the mind - hence alcoholic beverages were and are still referred to as spirits - thanks to the Greeks.

MikeM

the reforms you mention about Morocco, are not 'Islamic' reforms they are purely secular. That is why the reaction is noticed from the conservative Muslims scholars and identities in the article you referred us to. (I read it).

Some described the changes to divorce and property rights as 'devilish'.

So, while I welcome the changes, it would be amiss to suggest that this is an example of 'flexible Sharia law'. It is clearly not that.
It is in fact a departure from it.

I mention all this in another post in another thread (posted by mistake, thinking that was where u posted this article.)

The article is more a story of the triumph of Feminist ideology and western secular views in Muslim countries, than of nuance and updating of Sharia.

The same reaction was found in Malaysia to a womens group formed to tackle the same issues, ( a recent story on a doco) but they (the women) are trying to say its still "Islamic" when clearly it is not.

The Judao/Christian foundation for our law is very simple. "Do for others as you would have them do for you". If that principle is applied, law is indeed flexible and modifiable, yet still 'Christian' in one sense.

Sadly, much 'Law' is specifically designed to protect the interests of particular people (often lawyers) with vested interests.
Like when NSW cut off streets which might have been used by motorists to avoid an ugly TOLL on the cross city tunnel. Such a law is decidedly UN-Christian because it is based purely on financial gain at the expense of the populace.

There should never be any law forcing people to 'go to Church on Sunday' ... but democractically decided laws such as 'no shops open on Sunday' or.. 'Box Hill will be 'alchohol free/dry' are quite valid for the period where it is democratically viable. It is not disastrous loss if such laws are democratically changed. We Christians will continue to do what we do on Sundays and by and large avoid the excessive consumption of alchohol etc :)